All Danny, All the Time

Now that I'm starting to get the hang of this thing, I guess I can write some stuff that, believe it or not, is a little more important to me than foodnetwork.com. I can't think of any topic better to start with than Danny (and he complained to me last night that he wasn't mentioned in yesterday's Italy post). Danny is half-Italian, but by the looks of him after a few days in the sun, he might as well be straight off a beach in Positano. Yes, I, the very fair Midwestern blonde, have managed to snag a guy who is quintessentially tall, dark and handsome.

Danny lives in Salt Lake City currently and we have probably one of the most successful long distance relationships in history. We've been together for almost 2 years now and been long distance a full year of that, which I find astounding, because we do not act like a couple who has not been in the same city for a full year (minus the airplane tickets and nightly phone calls). Danny is doing research in a genetics lab in Salt Lake in preparation for applying to medical school, and he actually just began the almost year-long application process. He'll think I'm just sucking up to him by saying this, but Danny seriously is the smartest person I know and not in an annoying or dorky way either, he just gets things. I said before, he is very well-read and he is the guy who buys the Economist and can't wait to devour it, which I understand if I'm talking about an US Weekly with a good cover story. Beyond that though, the research he does in his lab, it's honestly incredible. He doesn't just do what he's told, he figures out how it all relates together and what the meaning of the experiment is. I honestly believe that if I wasn't dating Danny, I would be much less intelligent because he does a really good job of keeping me on my toes.

Danny is also hilarious and I owe his sense of humor a lot because it has introduced me to Dane Cook, who seriously makes me laugh so hard I almost choke and The Office, a show which I am now so addicted to I actually just re-watched all of Season 3 over the past few days. People who didn't know the Office would get lost during some of Danny and my conversations because we quote and reference the show so much. Sometimes we literally fill up a whole half hour with talking just about the most recent Office episode. We are that cool.

Danny also has a great family, which is nice for me because it makes my visits to Salt Lake much less stressful. He is the oldest of 4 kids, and he has 2 younger brothers and a sister. He's such a good brother it almost makes me wish I wasn't an only child, almost. But seriously, he really is so great with his family and you can tell a lot about a person by the way they interact with their family, so I can tell I've got a good one.

I'm realizing I have pretty much just bragged about Danny and inflated his ego this entire post, so I'll also mention one flaw. Danny is TERRIBLE about doing the dishes. Even if I have spent an hour cooking a 3-course meal for him, he doesn't agree with me that he should do the 15 minute chore of the dishes. I HATE doing dishes, I really think it's one of the reasons I got so into cooking because in my house, if you cooked most of the meal, you don't have to do the dishes, or at least all you do is dry. I think part of the reason Danny refuses to do the dishes is because he knows it drives me crazy. I can nag him into doing them eventually, but even then, I usually have to dry so that I can watch and make sure he scrubs well enough, etc. Oh well, I suppose if that's the most significant flaw I can think of, I should count my lucky stars. Maybe I'll just have to invest in a heavy duty dishwasher...